Mind, Bear Lawyer is a preternaturally clean player—insofar as he prefers not to get blood and/or grey matter on his uniform, or, in this case, on his officially-licensed lineman cardigan and painstakingly colour-matched necktie—and the vast majority of the incurred infractions had been, up to this point, inflicted upon members of the Caps’ line not seen in this panel. (BL’s “faithful Boswell” thought such carnage to be unfitting for public consumption, and accordingly left the melée-mangled victims just out of the frame.)

So, yes, the ice is a might bit slicker (and noticeably redder) elsewhere in the rink, the ref’s ire is most certainly justified, and BL may very well be facing aggravated assault charges in addition to multiple match penalties. Not to mention being banned from the Verizon Center for the remainder of the series, and likely beyond… the Commissioner cannot be terribly happy with the day’s events. It’s like Vancouver all over again.

As for the rec-league basketball player: Bear Lawyer (to the best of his knowledge) was not directly responsible for the previous loss of limb, and was quick to return the purloined prosthesis after using it to make a backboard-shattering windmill dunk from the free-throw line. As the courtside saying goes, “No blood, no foul”.